Garrett County Zoning: No Countywide Ordinance

Every other county in Maryland has some form of countywide zoning ordinance. Garrett does not. Zoning here applies only within the boundaries of the county's 6 incorporated towns and within the separately administered Deep Creek Watershed -- everywhere else, a specific parcel simply has no zoning district assigned to it at all.

This page covers what's specific to Garrett County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

Where zoning applies in Garrett County -- and where it does not

Garrett County has never adopted a zoning ordinance covering the county as a whole. Instead, zoning exists only in two specific, mapped contexts: inside the municipal boundaries of the county's 6 incorporated towns -- Accident, Friendsville, Grantsville, Loch Lynn Heights, Mountain Lake Park, and Oakland (the county seat) -- each of which runs its own separate municipal zoning code, and within the Deep Creek Watershed, a specifically defined area around Deep Creek Lake governed by the Deep Creek Watershed Zoning Ordinance, originally adopted June 1, 1975, with the most recent version taking effect May 25, 2010. That ordinance zones land within the watershed into agricultural, commercial, residential, rural, and town-use categories -- a conventional zoning structure, just one that applies only to that specific geography rather than the county as a whole.

Outside those two boundaries -- the 6 towns and the Deep Creek Watershed -- there is no zoning district at all covering the remainder of the county's 649.1 square miles, which is the large majority of Garrett's total land area. This is a genuinely unusual regulatory structure, not just within Maryland (where Garrett is the only county without countywide zoning) but nationally, since most US counties maintain at least a baseline zoning ordinance covering unincorporated land.

What actually governs unzoned Garrett County land

The absence of zoning doesn't mean the absence of all land-use regulation. The county's Subdivision Ordinance is the primary regulatory document governing how land outside the towns and the Deep Creek Watershed can be divided -- setting standards for lot creation, road access and construction, and related infrastructure requirements when a larger parcel is split into smaller lots for sale or development. What it generally does NOT do is function as a conventional zoning code: it doesn't assign land to a use category (residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial), doesn't set a minimum lot size independent of subdivision activity, and doesn't impose the kind of setback and density rules a zoning ordinance typically would.

For a buyer, the practical upshot is double-edged. On one hand, there's genuine flexibility: a rural Garrett County parcel outside the zoned areas isn't constrained by a use restriction the way an equivalent parcel would be almost anywhere else in Maryland, which can matter for mixed agricultural, residential, and small-commercial use on the same property. On the other hand, that same absence of zoning means there's no zoning-based protection against a neighboring use you might not want either -- without a zoning ordinance separating residential from industrial or commercial uses, a neighboring parcel's future use is far less predictable than it would be under a conventional zoning code. Statewide and local nuisance, building code, and environmental regulations (septic, floodplain, forest conservation) still apply regardless of zoning status, and should not be confused with the zoning question addressed here.

What to check before buying unzoned Garrett County land

First, confirm whether a specific parcel actually sits outside both the 6 incorporated towns and the Deep Creek Watershed boundary -- don't assume from a general sense of the property's location, since watershed and municipal boundaries have specific, mapped edges that can run closer to a given road or landmark than expected. If the parcel is inside a town or the watershed, treat that jurisdiction's own zoning code as controlling and confirm its specific district and use rules directly with that town or with the county's Deep Creek Watershed zoning office.

If the parcel is genuinely outside both boundaries, shift your due diligence toward the Subdivision Ordinance (for any planned lot splits) and toward practical site constraints instead of zoning: confirmed legal road access, septic feasibility via a current perc test (since minimum buildable area in practice often comes down to what a code-compliant septic system requires rather than a zoning minimum lot size), and any applicable floodplain or forest conservation requirements that apply regardless of zoning status. Because Garrett's land-use rules differ so structurally from the rest of Maryland, a buyer relying on general Maryland zoning assumptions -- or on an agent or attorney unfamiliar with this county's specific structure -- risks missing that there simply isn't a zoning answer to look up for this kind of parcel.

Zoning in Garrett County, Maryland: The Only County With No Countywide Zoning

Where zoning applies in Garrett County -- and where it does not

What actually governs unzoned Garrett County land

What to check before buying unzoned Garrett County land

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